


putting in a good effort

by ruedesgres (smithens)



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Law School, Spelling!, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-09-25 04:30:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20370718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/ruedesgres
Summary: Bossuet tells Joly that he has been struck from the role of the law school. Joly wishes he had chosen a better time.





	putting in a good effort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Akallabeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akallabeth/gifts).

It was lucky that the porter liked him.

(It was less lucky that he was liable to be replaced at any moment, and given his own history, this was likely to occur the day before Lesgle had an urgent need to be at Joly's flat.)

As such, he made it into the building without incident. Lesgle bounded up the steps and down the corridor, caught his breath, and then searched his pockets for the key.

One pocket had a hole in it he'd been previously unaware of, so ideally, he'd not left it in that one — but he knocked, just in case, and continued his search; the overcoat did have quite a few places to store a small object, and he could not for the life of him recall which he'd chosen.

Was it even this coat? He'd only the one on his back, but he'd borrowed some things of Courfeyrac's over the past week, and — damn it.

He knocked again, more quickly this time, and with more force.

Perhaps he wasn't home. 

Very well.

He resigned himself to his fate and seated himself on the floor, which proved uncomfortable as soon as he'd accomplished it, because the key was in his trouser pocket.

Joly  _ was _ home, in fact; it seemed that even with the knocking and the time it took for Lesgle to actually manage to open the door to the apartment, he'd caught his friend entirely unawares.

Or rather, he assumed that he had. It was unlike Joly to greet houseguests while pressing a woman into the wall by his hips.

Unable to help himself, he stared.

Then he cleared his throat.

The woman — oh, he remembered her, what was her name — had her leg around Joly's waist and arms around his neck, and neither of them seemed to hear him.

"Er," said Lesgle.

Joly did something curious with the strap of her stays by way of his mouth; this resulted in a moan.

Lesgle opened the door again, and this time he slammed it shut.

"— by Christ!" exclaimed Joly; he jumped away from  _ Musichetta _ — yes, that was the nickname, they'd only seen one another for a few weeks before another man had come along, and he'd never been  _ quite _ so adventurous as to see her from precisely this angle, all of that was years ago now besides — and hastily attempted to regain some modesty.

In his hurry to pull his braces back over his shoulders, wrap his shirt, and button the fall of his trousers he thankfully did not seem to notice that Lesgle, to his own consternation, could not decide at whom he would most like to stare (he looked respectfully to the floor instead). Meanwhile, Musichetta dabbed at her brow with a stray kerchief, tugged down her petticoat by the drawstring, and darted into the bedchamber. 

"I thought you were staying with  _ Courfeyrac _ ," Joly hissed.

"Well," said Lesgle. "I was."

And he averted his eyes once more as Joly put his head into his hands.

* * *

Lesgle gave them an hour, and surmised on his return that it had not been utilised as passionately as the five minutes prior to his first arrival.

But this time, he was greeted at the door by a Joly fully-dressed, with neater (albeit still rather sweaty and flyaway) hair and a calm expression. Musichetta had left.

"Why?" Lesgle demanded.

"Why do you think?" Joly replied, in a manner that did not request a genuine response, and he gestured to the divan, which functioned more often than not as Lesgle's bed.

They both sat. Joly pulled out his pocket mirror and, instead of poking his tongue out at it, began to observe his hair; when he brought out a comb, Lesgle did not bother to hide his envy. 

But he only scowled for a moment before he set his feet upon the Ottoman table and leaned back into the cushions. What a week it had been.

"...I hope you can forgive me," he said at last. "The defendant pleads that he knocked, and more than once, at that; he would like also for the prosecutor to consider that typically such activities occur in a  _ bedchamber _ —"

"They'll make a lawyer of you yet," mumbled Joly. His ears were turning pink.

"Aha!" exclaimed Lesgle. "Wrong again. For the next nine weeks I am a free man."

"What, you are discontinuing your attendance?"

Joly spoke as though this would be a dishonorable thing to do.

In a way, it was; on the other hand, he would certainly not be alone among his peers were that the case.

It was not, however, his path to freedom.

"A pattern presents itself, Jolllly. I have had a scuffle with the landed gentleman of the law school, to whom I pay rent by my presence. So be it, the walls were thin and the shingles were falling, it was not a place worth of a lease."

"You are being obtuse on purpose," replied Joly. His eyes narrowed.

Lesgle blanched.

"I was thrown out." 

"What!" cried Joly.

He picked at a thread which had strayed from his sleeve cuff. "Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but I shall not be welcomed back, that is certain. It is a grand thing, you know, to think I had once again neared that threshold of the barrage — "

"But what did you  _ do _ ," said Joly, his volume nearer to normal this time. He was not at all, Lesgle thought, disappointed, but his face was contorted in pure confusion. "Why, you've even been attending lectures! I've seen your notes! And now you are to be … er, not welcomed back?"

He'd put in a good effort, that was certain. It was true, and both of them knew it, that though it was not quite so respectable a profession as his dear departed family had always hoped for him, lawyerhood did give a man an income, and an income could be used to pay one's own rent.

"...I adopted the façade of one Baron Marius Pontmercy," he muttered, and it all seemed less humorous now that Joly was so perplexed by it.

But to his surprise, Joly began to look steadily more like himself, and he crossed his arms over his chest and sank into the couch cushions. Despite his posture, his face was very calm.

"My dear friend," he said slowly. "Bossuet. What, did you put on a one-man show?"

"It was but a moment's performance — "

"Oh, hell! You did not need to conjure up an elaborate tale to tell me you had simply decided to — as I said, to, to stop going to classes. I do not begrudge you it, but recall only that unlike some of our friends,  _ you _ do not earn an allowance."

This was just his luck.

Would he rather a friend who cared for him, or a friend who believed him, if he could not have both? At times, he and Joly shared everything but an understanding of one another.

"I exaggerate, Joly. What happened was this: I was wandering in the environs of here, passing the afternoon at my fancy. I found myself at the Sorbonne; I walked, perhaps by accident, into the lecture hall. The guest of honor — our aforementioned landed gentleman — was the professor Blondeau; as was his habit, he chose the day to call role. I thought to myself: what luck! Fancy that I have arrived here on this of all days!"

"Your first mistake," submitted Joly.

"No, that was leaving my dear mattress in the Hotel Porte-Saint-Jacques  _ par  _ Courfeyrac in the first place. My second mistake was entering, as I have said, the hall; my charming third was to wonder at my good fortune."

" _ Ô _ , tempter of fate."

They had quickly fallen into their customary riposte.

"Third and final! Now, to make very brief a story which could be very long, Blondeau began to call out, 'Pachoud, Palmetier, Papin, Pasquet, Paul A., Paul B., Paul J., Paul J-B. — '"

"Hold," said Joly. "Ought not the list of pupils begin with an 'A'?"

"Not," said Lesgle, "if you wish to catch them unawares. Anyhow, he commenced with P. All were present. He sought to make an example of a man, and was unsatisfied. So of course, when he must call upon 'Pontmercy' — "

"You fool!" exclaimed Joly, catching on. "Surely you did not!"

"I assure you I did."

"Go on, then."

"Pontmercy, as you have surmised, did not answer, and so he was called upon a second time. Still silence. Upon the third, I answered for him, but Blondeau is a rascal, and he abandoned his Popelins, his Ptolemées, his Pugnets to pounce upon his 'Laigle' —"

"Is it spelled with an 'A', there, or did he also abandon his Lamberts and his Lalondes?"

"With an 'A', but I think there is a 'Lagrange', though I've not heard his name in weeks. Blondeau, nevertheless, bestowed me with this bit of logic: if I am Pontmercy, I cannot be Laigle. So he had his example after all. And now I am homeless once more, for Courfeyrac cannot be bothered. He is occupied. You see, Pontmercy is now his neighbor."

"Oh,  _ now _ you surely jest."

"Courfeyrac has, need I remind you, made rather a habit of installing stray young men in his home. I wonder if he is given incentive by that landlady of his."

Joly raised his eyebrows. "It must not be a very good one, for to my knowledge most whom he has helped have been turned out at some point or another."

"Right you are! Nevertheless, I thought I might give him the time to make a friend."

He neglected to mention that he would have been turned out anyway, for Courfeyrac had invited over his mistress and a friend of hers, who was regrettably  _ not _ meant for his company.

"How very noble of you," replied Joly smoothly. "And now you plan to stay with me, I surmise?"

"I ought to go off with Grantaire, really, I've imposed upon you enough."

Joly laughed, kindly lied that he had not imposed at all, and took him to dinner, but Lesgles did, indeed, stay with Grantaire, who thought that all of this made a wonderful occasion for a toast and then some.

* * *

"Your friend," Musichetta said. She had an ivory comb —  _ not _ courtesy of Joly, to his chagrin every time he saw it — and was raking it through her long, dark hair while seated on his bed.

In his bedchamber.

The door to which he had also locked, thank the good Lord for his blessing of foresight.

"— I am  _ truly sorry _ about him," stammered Joly. "Only he'd just been thrown out of the law school for answering role as another student and knew not where else to —"

"Oh, I don't terribly mind, but would you  _ please _ not let it happen again without warning." But she was looking at him as though his friend were insane.

"Without warning?"

She nodded, then rose to set the comb upon his dressing table, beside her whitework cap and a pile of hair pins. The neckline drawstring of her chemise — that _ was _ from him — was undone; the gusset at her shoulder fell nearer to her bust, its lace cap sleeve settling at the middle of her pale, slender arm.

He caught her by the waist as she turned around, leaned forward to press a kiss to her neck.

"We never did finish what we started," he breathed into her ear, gently guiding her away from the dressing table as though in a dance.

"No," she replied, threading her fingers into his hair. "We did not."

His hands fell from her waist to her hips, and then drew inward —

"Shall we?"

Gentleness was discarded; Musichetta pulled him backward, steadied herself against the wall by the doorframe. 

"Yes."


End file.
